Subscribe to the OSS Weekly Newsletter!

Cheating on the National

20 Mar 2017

On The National, Peter Mansbridge reported the results of a survey on cheating in Canadian universities.聽 Reference was made to data gathered from over 40 universities about the number of students...

What is Cream of Tartar Good For?

20 Mar 2017

It is a cheap, safe, readily available mild acid.聽聽It is ideal for the generation of carbon dioxide from baking soda.聽聽In fact, one version of baking powder is a mixture of sodium bicarbonate and...

How Does Peroxide Whiten Teeth?

20 Mar 2017

Ancient Romans, for example, used urine and goat milk to whiten their teeth. This concoction is not as far-fetched as it might first appear. Urine, contains ammonia which is a cleaning agent found...

Social Tonics

20 Mar 2017

If it isn鈥檛 illegal, it must be legal. That鈥檚 why benzylpiperazine pills, under names such as Purepillz, Peaq, The Good Stuff, Frenzy and Pure Rush can be sold in Canada. And what are these pills? ...

What element derives its name from the Latin word for 鈥渇low?鈥

20 Mar 2017

Fluere is the Latin word for flow and provides the root for the name of the element we know as fluorine. One of the common naturally occurring sources of fluorine is the mineral calcium fluoride,...

Why Black Hair Dye Became Popular in 1930s Detroit

20 Mar 2017

Well, because Henry Ford decided that younger men could work more productively on his automobile assembly line and so began to fire older workers and higher younger ones. This prompted some of the...

Chemistry at the Vatican

20 Mar 2017

The new Pope, we now learn, once worked as a chemist.聽It is interesting then to note that his selection was signaled through some nifty chemistry. The smoke signals used during the conclave are...

Cathodic Protection

20 Mar 2017

You use cathodic protection聽to prevent iron from rusting. The rusting of iron is an expensive process. It is estimated that the deterioration of iron due to corrosion costs billions of dollars a...

The Case of "Saltair Sally"

20 Mar 2017

In October 2000, while walking along the shores of the "Great Salt Lake" near Salt Lake City, two hunters made a gruesome discovery. In a plastic bag, they found a white sock, a shirt, a few bones...

Pages

Back to top